A few things

I need to get back to blogging about gaming, and I will soon (or if not, I'll make another YouTube video about it, which I'm also behind on) but for today, here's some interesting data that I stumbled across by accident. First, a "perception of corruption by country" map that was presented to me in some work training, but which is distributed by some third party research group. I find it interesting, although not surprising, that it completely validates the Z-man's assertion that the war between Russia and the Ukraine is a war between the two most corrupt white nations... if you ignore Byelorussia, which is pedantically listed as a hair more corrupt than Ukraine (although I have my doubts. Besides, this is a list of perception of corruption, not necessarily actual corruption, which is certainly harder to measure.)

Mexico is also abysmally low and falling fast every time the data is refreshed. Because so many Americans do business with Mexico, our compliance training at work obviously focused heavily on dealing with Mexico. But it's also extremely relevant in our current political discussions about the Trump administration's grief with Mexico in general. It also of course is extremely relevant with regards to the expected behavior of large blocks of Mexicans living in the United States. As Vox Day has said for years, there's nothing magical about the dirt of America, where if foreigners set foot on it it magically turns them into Americans. They will continue to be Mexicans, or whatever it is that they were before they came. Therefore, patterns of behavior, genetics, and human capital by nation should be expected to continue to hold true (minus a mass admixture event, or something) regardless of geographic location. Mexicans are still Mexicans, even if they get American paperwork, and their behavior will continue to be Mexican, even in America, for the most part. Expecting anything other than that is wishful thinking, delusional, and ridiculous.

https://transparency.org/cpi is the link. The redder the color, the more corrupt the country is perceived to be. 

On another note, a lot of Canadians are bent out of shape by the tariffs, calling them unfair, and getting mad at America. Screw you, Canada! If you don't like tariffs, here's a sampling of tariffs that Canada has charged on American goods for decades (rounded to the nearest whole number):

Milk 270%

Cheese 245%

Butter 298%

Chicken 238%

Sausages 69%

Barley seed 58%

Beef 27%

Cars 25%

HVAC 45%

Vacuums 36^

Cable boxes 35%

TVs 45%

Steel 25%

Aluminum 45%

Copper 48%

I'm not impressed with their complaining, and much less impressed by their threats. The reality is that Canada's economy is extremely vulnerable, and they know it. Their tariffs are a blip on our economy. Our tariffs would be devastating to theirs. That's what happens when you have a gigantic trade surplus with much larger country that has a great many natural resources, and the capability to not need any of your imports at all. The US has funded a lot of Canada's nonsense; they have no real military to speak of, because they rely on ours. They engage in plenty of protectionism because it funds their economy at our expense, but they are a relatively small trading partner with us. On the other hand, we are a HUGE trading partner for them. 

Trudeau is, of course, a liar and an idiot, but even so-called conservative star Pierre Poilievre is sounding kinda whiny, calling Canada America's best friend because they sent a handful of soldiers to Afghanistan years ago or something like that. He says we stabbed them in the back (by reciprocating their own behavior?) and saying that we're already paying higher gas prices (my local gas price is down at least $0.25 in the last couple of days).

Canada isn't America's best friend. I've known too many Canadians to believe that, even regardless of the policies of their government. Canadians are smug and arrogant, and look at Americans with contempt, for the most part. Canada is the leftover New French, who resent the rest of Canada and the British Canadians, even as they rely on them financially, and the rest of Canada are Americans who do the same to America. They were afraid of freedom in 1776, were comfortable with living under tyranny, and continue to do so. But they have the same dynamic with America; they resent us and dislike us even as they are completely dependent on us financially. Their threats to sell their oil to China or India ring pretty hollow; they're pretty much allowed themselves to be invaded and purchased by China and India anyway.

Rather than being our best friend, Canada is our toxic, narcissistic ex-girlfriend, who still depends on us, but hates us in part because of that financial dependence. I have little sympathy for what could potentially happen to their economy if they continue to attempt to exploit and tweak us. You asked for it, sweet-cheeks. If you don't like it, you should have had a much better pattern of behavior in how you treated us. We're completely and utterly justified in putting the screws to you until you shape up, because you still haven't moved out of our basement and set yourself up as a legitimately independent country.